


What Love Is (According to Foggy Nelson)

by AsperJasper



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety Attacks, Blind Date, M/M, Overstimulation, all i want is for matt to be happy after s3 is that too much to ask, almost pure fluff, no pun intended and it doesn't go anywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsperJasper/pseuds/AsperJasper
Summary: “That’s what love is,” Foggy said, simple and cheerful like that wasn’t kind of a big deal to say. And Matt ignored the way that made his stomach twist, the fact that Foggy apparently loved him and could say it so easily.And Foggy hummed quietly in what sounded like satisfaction and patted Matt’s knee and shifted so they were sitting right next to each other, leaning against each other. And Foggy didn’t say it, but Matt added another thing on the list of What Love Is According to Foggy Nelson.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

Three days after moving into the dorm he shared with Foggy Nelson, Matt came back from class after waking up late and leaving the dorm in a frantic rush to find his bed already made. He definitely hadn’t made it himself, he knew because he’d been frustrated by the lack of time he had and having to leave the room without putting everything in its place was annoying. Maybe he didn’t exactly _need_ to be as neat as he was, but he _liked_ to be neat and orderly and to not have to focus and pay attention to his senses when he came back to his room. He wanted to be able to sit at his desk and know where the pen was by memory, not by the smell of the ink, and to know that his bed was made because he’d made it and so he could sit on the edge without knocking a pillow to the floor. So he usually made his bed every morning, tucked the blankets and sheets in neatly, and propped his pillow up by the headboard, exactly the same every morning. And he knew he hadn’t made his bed this morning, but when he came back to the dorm and dropped his bag on his desk chair and went to pull the blanket up to make his bed, only he realized as soon as he turned his attention to it that his bed was already made. Perfectly made, exactly how he made it, down to the double fold on the top sheet that made it stay straight even when he sat on top of the duvet.

And he hadn’t made it.

Obviously, that meant Foggy had. Nobody else could have been in the room, and Foggy had class later than Matt on Thursdays, and so Foggy must have noticed Matt in a mad rush to not be late, and so Foggy must have made Matt’s bed for him.

Foggy didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t make it a big deal, and Matt didn’t say anything either, because that would be weird? Was he supposed to thank Foggy for doing something that he could do himself? He didn’t know Foggy all that well yet, was the problem, and he didn’t know if saying thank you would unlock that annoying personality trait that all sighted people seemed to have of trying to do everything for Matt like being blind made him helpless. But Foggy didn’t seem to do that.

He’d just made Matt’s bed for him and never said a single word about it.

And it wasn’t like Matt was late all that often, but he did notice that every single time he woke up late and had to rush out the door without having time to make his bed, if Foggy left after him or got home before him, his bed was made when he walked through the door. Exactly how he would have made it, perfect.

And Foggy never said a word about it.

A month into second semester, Matt woke up late for the seventh time of his law school career, and this time, when he got home Foggy was in the process of making his bed.

Strangely, he still didn’t say anything, just cheerfully finished tucking the blanket in tight and propping the pillow up perfectly while chatting with Matt about his day and classes and did you hear what Alexander Ross said about Professor Gray in the caf this morning I can’t believe he didn’t get in trouble for that, Gray was _right there_.

“You know you don’t have to make my bed for me,” Matt eventually said in a lull in their conversation.

“I know. You were just in a rush this morning and I know you like your bed made, so I figured it’s one less thing to stress about.”

And now Matt knew Foggy well enough to be pretty sure he wouldn’t start treating Matt like he was four years old, so he said, “Oh. Thanks, Fogs.”

“That’s what love is,” Foggy said, simple and cheerful like that wasn’t kind of a big deal to say. And Matt ignored the way that made his stomach twist, the fact that Foggy apparently loved him and could say it so easily. Matt hadn’t had a friend close enough to say he loved them in a long time, if ever, and Foggy just dropped it out there like it was nothing.

“Love is making my bed for me?” Matt forced himself to laugh a little.

“Duh.”

*************************

Matt wasn’t the biggest party person, at least not the college party type. Like the ones run by frat bros full of loud music and cheap alcohol. He’d learned that in undergrad, because the few times he'd gone he’d been instantly overwhelmed and unable to focus on anything, all of his senses feeding him so much information that he couldn’t sort through it.

In law school, Foggy had never pressured Matt to come with him. He always invited Matt, but when Matt politely declined to go to the party of the week that was that. He dropped the subject and cheerfully told Matt not to wait up but also for the love of god do something for fun instead of spending all Friday night doing homework.

He usually made his way back to the dorm at around two am, clearly trying to be quiet and maybe it would have worked if Matt’s hearing wasn’t so good but also Foggy was almost always clearly very drunk, so probably not. Matt just rolled over and went back to sleep once he heard Foggy make his way into bed. Sometimes he texted Matt that he wasn’t coming back, and then he found Matt at breakfast looking overly satisfied with himself, armed with details Matt certainly did not ask for about whoever he’d hooked up with the night before.

The week after midterms of their second semester, Matt had actually agreed to go with to a party.

He’d worked hard all semester, he reasoned. And he knew enough people that he’d probably be able to find somebody to talk to even if Foggy wandered off. And when he heard the way Foggy practically vibrated with excitement when Matt said he’d come with, it was worth it.

It had been a little while since Foggy had so casually told Matt that he loved him, that making his bed for him was love, and Matt was getting used to the idea. The idea that Foggy could care for him so much, like him so much, that he wanted to do little things for him. And that he liked Matt so much that Matt simply agreeing to go with a party made him this happy.

But it was still strange, in a wonderful way, to hear how genuinely happy Foggy was to have Matt with him.

Matt still wasn’t a party person.

Parties like this were still loud and smelled pretty bad and everything was vibrating from the music and it was pretty disgusting overall, but Foggy had his hand on Matt’s elbow and kept drawing him into conversations and passing him drinks when he finished one, and so Matt was at least kind of enjoying himself.

After a couple hours, though, he was ready to go. He needed to get far enough away from this noise and smell and overwhelming surrounding noise and vibration that he could actually separate things from each other.

Foggy was drunk. Matt wasn’t exactly sober himself, which was part of why things were getting more and more overwhelming, but Foggy was just absolutely smashed. When Matt said he wanted to go, Foggy nodded and tried to take Matt’s arm like he did when they usually walked together, but even though it may have looked like Foggy was leading Matt, Matt was definitely the one of the pair of them who had the most control.

Matt could tell Foggy was about to throw up as soon as they were halfway down the hallway to their dorm, and he redirected them to the bathroom. No way was he going to be getting any sleep at all if Foggy puked anywhere in their room. He knew from experience that that smell would be un-ignorable for at least three days.

So he got Foggy into the bathroom and into a stall and leaned against the wall while Foggy tried to stop himself from puking.

“Just let it out, buddy, this is painful to listen to.”

“Fuck you, Murdock.”

Foggy probably would have had some other insult to add if that hadn’t been the moment he finally couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Matt’s nose wrinkled at the smell, and he caught Foggy’s long hair before any puke could get into it. No thank you to that one, and to Foggy complaining about it himself.

“Thanks, Matt,” Foggy mumbled when he was done throwing up.

“Any time, Foggy.”

“And for my hair. Keeping my hair back. That’s what love is.”

Matt hadn’t told Foggy that he loved him. Foggy had said it casually. Tossing out a, “Love you buddy!” On the way out the door in the morning, or right before he fell asleep, or when Matt agreed to do something for him.

But Matt hadn’t said it back because he was a little bit scared to. Because the thing was Matt hadn’t had a friend as good as Foggy in a long time, and even though it was a bit nonsensical because Foggy had already said it to Matt, Matt was scared it would scare Foggy off if he knew how much Matt cared about him.

Clearly Foggy had figured it out, though.

Or maybe he was just drunk.

“So now love is keeping you from throwing up in your own hair?”

“Love is holding back somebody’s hair when they’re drunk and can’t do it themself.”

Foggy was shaking slightly in the way people did after they threw up, and he was leaning on Matt a bit more than he had been before like he was confident in Matt’s ability to get them back to the dorm.

*************************

It was an easy decision, at least from Matt’s end, to room with Foggy again second year.

From a pragmatic standpoint, Foggy already knew all of Matt’s little particularities and habits. He kept the room neat and organized and wasn’t obnoxious about it. And just from a general standpoint, Foggy was Matt’s best friend. They got along, made each other laugh, enjoyed being around each other. Foggy treated Matt like any other normal person, not like he was made of glass, and they worked well as a pair.

Matt assumed Foggy was as happy to room with him again as he was because when he brought it up when it was time to submit housing applications, Foggy had laughed and acted like it wasn’t even something he had to think about. Of course, they’d be roommates again.

The summer was strange. Matt had never lived on his own before, which he didn’t really think about until the room he was subletting for the summer was so big and empty and quiet. Not that there wasn’t anything to listen to; the sounds of the city flooded his head like always, but there was no breathing from a bed across the room, no other person shuffling in the blankets in their sleep, and that was strange.

The closest he’d gotten to this was when he stayed in the dorm over winter break and Foggy was home, but even then there had been other people in the rooms around him, sharing his space in the bathroom and laundry room and somehow, maybe just because that was a dorm and this was not, it felt different.

It took some getting used to, and meeting Foggy for coffee a week into break was a relief.

Matt hadn’t realized how familiar Foggy had become until he recognized his heartbeat from three blocks away, and while he’d had an idea of how much he cared about Foggy, he hadn’t quite processed it until he couldn’t stop himself from grinning as soon as he heard Foggy’s voice.

It had been a week, and he was so happy to see Foggy he almost hugged him.

“Been having lots of bachelor pad fun in an apartment all your own?” Foggy gently elbowed Matt in the side.

“It’s a bedroom in somebody else’s apartment, and it sucks.”

Foggy laughed, and Matt laughed and wished it was already time to move back into school, because he was happy and comfortable with Foggy and he liked not feeling like he was on his own.

“You wanna stay at a table and I’ll grab drinks? It’s busy in here.”

“Sure.”

Foggy bounced away towards the counter without asking what Matt wanted, and yet Matt heard him order exactly what Matt would have.

Matt still pretended to be surprised when he took a sip.

“That is still your order, I assume? It’s been what, two and a half weeks since we got coffee?”

“Yeah, it is. I didn’t realize you knew it by heart.”

Before he’d even finished saying it, he knew what Foggy was going to say.

“That’s what love is, knowing somebody’s coffee order.”

“Love is a lot of things, huh?”

“Duh. How boring would it be if it were only one?”

*************************

When it was finally time to move back into the dorms, Matt had never been more ready for change. He’d missed not only living with Foggy but also the structure of classes and the normalcy of it all.

Last year when he walked into the room for the first time, he’d had a kind of awkward conversation with a guy he didn’t know.

This year he already had about twenty texts from Foggy.

_jenna from down the hall last year is above us this year fuck that_

_dude did you know that jason has a cat that dudes got it going ON_

_i wanted to make your bed except i forgot to steal sheets last time i was over sad_

_do you think getting drunk is appropriate tonight or do we have to wait until friday?_

They all made Matt laugh when he got them, and even though he’d seen Foggy three days before, it was fun to walk into the dorm and be assaulted with a very affectionate hug and a very dramatic retelling of the first interaction Foggy had had with the RA, who was apparently a rival from some class last year that Matt hadn’t been in.

He didn’t notice the scent in the room for almost two hours, after he’d made his bed and gotten most of his stuff put away and he and Foggy were both lying down, heads propped on hands, comparing schedules and chatting about nothing in particular.

Well, he’d kind of noticed it, to be fair, but he’d assumed it was coming from somewhere else because he hadn’t turned his attention to the windowsill to notice the little vase there.

Flowers. Specifically, Lillies of the valley, which were his favorite flower because they had a nice smell but it wasn’t usually very strong. He hated flowers that smelled so strong they clogged up the whole room.

He couldn’t exactly say, “Hey thanks for getting nice flowers, I can smell them and they’re very nice,” so he waited until they were getting into bed and then he went to open the window to let in a breeze and he touched the flowers.

“Did you get Lillies of the valley?”

“My mom wanted us to have flowers and I told her those were your favorite.” Foggy yawned and rolled over onto his back.

“When did I tell you my favorite flower?”

“Last year when that girl gave you roses and gardenias and told you you would like them because they smelled and you took them to be nice and complained about floral scents for like an hour.”

“And you remembered my favorite flower from that?”

“You were very specific about it, Matt. And isn’t that-“

“What love is?”

“Hey, that’s my line.”

Matt laughed quietly as he climbed into his own bed.

“Love you too, Foggy.”

*************************

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Matt and Foggy had a legal history class together in the morning. It wasn’t the hardest class they were in, but it was pretty boring, mostly because the professor was the type who just talked and talked and talked and had a very dry, boring lecture style.

And half the homework was writing essays while the other half was watching video lectures and answering questions about them, which meant that pretty much every Monday night Matt and Foggy watched the videos together.

Well, listened to them. Matt obviously couldn’t see them, and Foggy seemed to usually be doing something else like playing a game on his phone or possibly just taking a nap while the lectures played off of his laptop.

Tonight, as they were halfway through an hour-long lecture on history, Foggy was doing something else.

Matt couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, facing out towards Matt’s bed, his head tilted back and his hands up in his hair. He was doing something, his hands were moving rhythmically and Matt could hear his hair moving, but he’d been doing it for the entire time the lecture had been playing. And it wasn’t like the noise itself was annoying, it was quiet and rhythmic and honestly a lot less annoying than like, Angry Birds sound effects for an hour straight, but Matt was curious. And it was loud enough that maybe a normal person would be able to hear it, right?

“What are you doing?” Matt finally asked around minute forty-five.

“Hmm?”

“I can hear you moving. I was just wondering.”

“Oh. Uh. I’m braiding my hair.”

“Oh.”

“It helps me focus I guess. You know, constant motion and all that.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s…I mean I was just curious.”

“I can stop if it’s bothering you.”

“No! I mean, it’s not annoying. I just couldn’t figure out what you were doing. I guess I’ve never been around somebody braiding before.” Matt shrugged, mentally kicking himself for making it awkward. Probably it wasn’t a normal thing for him to have heard and noticed, and now Foggy was probably self-conscious and there was no reason for him to be, since he had just been braiding his hair and it apparently helped him focus and-

“Never? It’s pretty fun. My mom taught me when I grew it out. She said I wasn’t allowed to have long hair if I couldn’t take care of it.”

“Somehow I don’t think it’s something I’d be very good at even if I had been around it.”

“Nonsense. I can’t see the back of my own head and I can do a damn good braid back there. Get over here, I’ll show you!” Foggy paused the lecture and enthusiastically slapped the mattress next to him until Matt laughed and gave in. “Okay, feel here.” Foggy took Matt’s hand and put it on the back of his head. “Can you feel the braid?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“So it’s three strands. This one’s half done, so the strands are still loose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you take the three strands, and can you feel how the one in the middle goes over one strand to the side?”

“Kind of?”

“The one that the middle one isn’t over goes over the middle one so it’s in the middle.”

Matt did his best to follow Foggy’s somewhat confusing instructions and was pretty sure he’d messed up. The problem was, even when he focused his senses on the braid, it was all hair, and it wasn’t a tight and defined braid so all of the strands kind of blended together.

“And then the one on the other side goes over the middle to become the middle. And you just do that until you run out of hair.”

Matt tried. Foggy hit play on the lecture again while Matt tried his best to finish the braid, and when he reached the end, Foggy pulled an elastic from his wrist and tied it off before taking the other half of his hair and separating it into three more strands. He braided about half of it himself before passing the strands to Matt again.

“My hair isn’t long enough to do a normal braid all the way down and I don’t think you want to learn a French braid,” he said simply, and Matt traced his fingers over the part Foggy had done, trying to feel the difference between that and the piece he was doing. “Simple braids are easier.”

“Am I even doing it right?” Foggy laughed, and ran his fingers down the braid Matt had already finished.

“Some would call this a fashionably messy braid, and I, dear Matthew, am more than satisfied with your first attempt.”

“And my second?”

Foggy snapped a second elastic off his wrist and tied off the second braid, running his fingers down that one, too.

“Even better.”

And Foggy hummed quietly in what sounded like satisfaction and patted Matt’s knee and shifted so they were sitting right next to each other, leaning against each other. And Foggy didn’t say it, but Matt added another thing on the list of What Love Is According to Foggy Nelson.

*************************

Matt did not enjoy being sick.

Probably nobody enjoyed being sick, but for Matt, it was a particular kind of hell. Not only did it often send him spiraling, trapped in his own head since his way of coping with guilt or anxiety or depression or anything really was to get out and do something physical like finding a punching bag, it was also the physical consequences of being sick.

Because he interacted with the world through sound, taste, smell, and touch. When he was sick, and his nose got all clogged which dulled his sense of taste and his ears felt filled with something, it was a lot harder to tell what was going on.

“Everything tastes like peanut butter,” he complained to Foggy.

“I’ll get you some milk,” Foggy offered, and normally Matt would have been able to hear if he was being sweetly sincere or gently making fun of him, but he couldn’t tell at all right now because he had a headache and his ears were dull and he felt like he could barely hear the words, let alone the intent behind them.

“This sucks, Foggy. I hate it.”

“Have you never had a cold before, Matt?”

“Ugh.”

Matt flopped back onto his bed. He didn’t want to go to class. He didn’t want to sit in a lecture when his head hurt like this and he had to concentrate so hard to focus on any one thing and if this head cold didn’t go away right now he was going to die.

“So you’re taking a sick day,” Foggy said lightly. “And I will not hear otherwise.”

“I don’t-“

“You just said, out loud, that you feel like you’re going to die, and while I’m sure that’s an exaggeration because you’re a dramatic man, you clearly feel bad. Get your ass all the way back in bed.”

“You aren’t my dad.”

“You aren’t your own dad.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You don’t make sense.”

Matt laughed a little and it made him wince.

“Fine.”

“Never think you can out-stubborn me, Matthew Murdock. I will win every time.”

“Noted.”

And it was probably a good thing that he didn’t go to class because five minutes after the door closed behind Foggy, Matt fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until he was being poked.

“I come bearing gifts,” Foggy said when Matt half sat up on his elbows.

“What?”

“We’ve got DayQuil. We’ve got NyQuil. Well, off-brand of both because name brand was like ten dollars more expensive for some godforsaken reason. We’ve got notes, already emailed to you for when you’re feeling better. We’ve got milk for your peanut butter problem. We’ve got Skittles in the hopes that sugar will make you feel better. And, to top it all of, it’s soup day. So we’ve got chicken noodle, tortilla, and tomato soup for your perusal.”

Everything but the soup and emailed notes got dropped on Matt’s lap as Foggy listed them.

“Foggy you didn’t have to-“

“Shut up, Murdock, and let your friend take care of you.” 

Matt weakly tried to protest again only to have Foggy pat him on the head and pick up one of the boxes from Matt’s lap and start to pull it open.

“Take a DayQuil. Ease your suffering.”

“Not exactly a Catholic strong suit,” Matt quipped, but he took the pill. With milk, which tasted like peanut butter because everything tasted like peanut butter.

The problem, he reflected, wasn’t even just that his senses were dull. Because he did know how to get around without his senses being as crazy sensitive as they were. It was the fact that he was getting sensory input that he couldn’t trust, like milk tasting like peanut butter, and that made him paranoid of every input he was getting. He didn’t really know what was real and what was him being sick, and that was way more disorienting than just the dulled senses themselves.

“You have a protestant roommate-slash-best-friend who absolutely will not endorse you not taking medicine out of some desire for Catholic suffering. Did the milk help?”

“Everything still tastes like peanut butter.” Matt sat up all the way and turned so he was leaning against the wall. “If the soup tastes like peanut butter I’ll die.”

“Sick Matt is very dramatic. If you weren’t so miserable and pathetic I’d have a lot of fun with this.”

“Are you not already?”

“I’m being very sympathetic and bullying you into taking care of yourself.”

“Because you love me,” Matt mumbled, just sick enough that the wonder of having a friend who loved him had to be expressed verbally instead of contained to his head like usual. Since some piece of him still couldn’t get over the fact that Foggy loved him, that their friendship was that strong.

“Yes, because I love you and love is taking care of each other when we’re sick.”

Unlike most of the times when Foggy said what Matt was starting to consider his catchphrase, this time Foggy confidently defined love very sincerely, seriously. Like it wasn’t just a silly, casual thing, but something Foggy really, truly meant.

Matt could blame being sick all he wanted but the fact was that he was getting emotional because the feeling of being loved was overwhelming.

And Matt didn’t need to hear Foggy’s heartbeat to know he was telling the truth.

*************************

By the time they were almost ready to graduate, Matt and Foggy had accumulated a lot of rituals.

Most of them had developed over time, starting out as something one of them did that just kind of stuck until it was bordering on superstition. Like how Foggy always stole one of Matt’s nice pens to take tests with because he’d gotten a perfect score the first time he’d done it. Or how Matt was always the one to shut off the lights, which was both practical and possibly rooted in the fact that Foggy was still a little scared of the dark, but Matt was always the one to turn off the lights.

Matt’s favorite thing, though, was movie night. At least once a month, Foggy picked a night where Matt couldn’t claim to be doing anything else and made him sit on Foggy’s bed and watch some random movie, usually that he insisted was a cultural touchstone that Matt had to consume at least once.

The first few times, which had been in their first year, Foggy had had the audio description on and had only chimed in with additions of his own when the description missed something he thought was important. Eventually, though, he picked a movie that was some artsy indie film that he couldn’t find a description option for, and Matt had offered that he do it himself, since he was usually pretty good at it when he was just adding things in anyway.

And that had been way more fun.

With most people, it wouldn’t have. Matt had sat through enough movies with people who weren’t willing to listen to the audio description who had promised to tell him what was happening only for them to “forget” or only mention the most absolute bare-bones things.

Sorry, but being told, “oh, yeah, the blonde is in the room now” five minutes after the blonde entered the room because he was suddenly confused by who was talking did not count as keeping him up to date with what was going on.

Foggy didn’t have that problem. If anything, he had the opposite of that problem where he described everything in such excruciating detail that even the most serious movies ended up being funny because Foggy had to press pause and look for the exact eye color of the newest character.

And audio descriptions just did not have as much character as a very enthusiastic and often slightly tipsy Foggy Nelson leaning into Matt’s side and painting very vivid and very unique pictures of what was going on on the screen.

Their least successful foray into Foggy Nelson’s voice-over career was Inception, which Foggy said was a headache to watch, anyway, and Matt couldn’t really follow what was going on while he talked.

Two weeks before graduation, they watched The Princess Bride, which Foggy said he’d been saving for a special occasion since this might be the last movie night they had in a Columbia dorm, it was a special enough occasion for him.

“I have a test-“

“Bullshit. We have finals in a week and I’m in all your classes except one.”

“Well, I should study for finals.”

“You’ve already studied more for finals than anybody in this damn school.”

It was the game they played every time. Matt had to pretend to resist or it wasn’t as much fun to give in and watch with Foggy, even though they both knew he wouldn’t end up actually saying no. He never did.

One because Foggy seemed to memorize Matt’s schedule as well as his own and always picked nights where Matt really did have no good excuse, and two because Matt really did enjoy movie nights. A lot.

He liked the simplicity of sitting against the wall on Foggy’s bed, the two of them leaning together for no real reason since Matt didn’t have to be close to see anything, just because that was what felt natural.

By the end of the movie, Matt’s face hurt from smiling so much and his stomach hurt from laughing. He doubted anyone had ever experienced The Princess Bride exactly like this before. Foggy’s colorful commentary, ranging from opinions on how Wesley pulled off his pirate costume to extremely detailed descriptions of the physical comedy of mostly dead all day, really added a whole new layer to it all. A very funny layer.

Even when the movie was over, Matt didn’t want to move. He was comfortable, physically and emotionally, exactly where he was right now. Still shaking slightly from laughter, leaned against Foggy. Glasses off, which wasn’t something he would have thought he’d be this comfortable with with pretty much anyone three years ago.

Foggy didn’t seem willing to move, either, occasionally tossing out a joke he hadn’t used during the movie and setting them both off again.

And then they fell asleep.

It had happened before. Several times, and not just because of movie nights, they’d ended up falling asleep in the same bed. Sometimes when they were both drunk, or when Foggy brought Matt down from a nightmare-induced panic attack and being together had just felt comfortable and natural just like this.

Because that’s how they were.

How they had been since pretty much the beginning, once they were past the awkward first meeting stage. Just…comfortable with each other. Like platonic soulmates, like they were just meant to have met and be friends and be with each other.

In fact, that had kind of ended Foggy’s relationship with Marci. Matt wasn’t positive she’d told Foggy as much, but she had cornered Matt right after they broke up and informed him in her politely threatening way that Foggy was too good for him and if they were going to act like they were dating anyway, to the point of Foggy apparently canceling a date with Marci because he’d told Matt he would meet him for dining hall dinner, Matt should man up and ask him out for real.

Which had confused Matt, because they weren’t dating, and never had been dating, and he didn’t really understand why Marci would say that, anyway. They were just friends, really good close friends, and Matt wasn’t going to change that just because Marci thought it looked like they were dating.

So they fell asleep together on Foggy’s bed after watching The Princess Bride.

When they woke up, Matt was half on top of Foggy, sprawled on top of the covers in a heap.

Something that Matt had noticed in his friendship with Foggy was that the closer they were physically, the more blocked out the world around him was. It was true of anyone, really, the same thing happened when Matt hooked up with somebody and woke up close to them. But it was different with Foggy, because Matt had Foggy memorized. The way he breathed, his heartbeat, the way he mumbled in his sleep, it was all so familiar to Matt that when he was pressed close to him like this, it was easy to focus on the things he knew so well and tune out everything else. The cars, the other people in the building, the people walking and talking on the street, it all faded away and was replaced with the steady bump-bump of Foggy’s heartbeat.

“Good morning, Mr. Murdock,” Foggy murmured as he woke up. “You are on my left arm.”

“Sorry, Fogs.”

“Tis but a scratch. But rolling over would be much appreciated.”

Matt laughed softly and rolled over so their arms were pressed together instead of Matt being on top of Foggy.

“Didja sleep well, Matt?” Foggy asked through a yawn. “Didja dream of pirates and sword fights?”

“More like boats of the non-pirate variety because somebody was snoring like a motorboat.”

“I’ll have you know I snore like a foghorn, and any other simile is an insult to my good name.”

Matt laughed again, and Foggy laughed, and the bed shook while they laughed, and just like with the braiding, Matt didn’t need Foggy to say it to know that this, that falling asleep together and laughing together were all what love is according to Foggy Nelson.

*************************

Landman and Zack went against pretty much every value Matt had that had driven him to be a lawyer.

It wasn’t just the soul-crushing work, how he and Foggy spent all day every day in their office that was really a closet doing what felt like busy-work or else was just the most depressing parts of the job that none of the higher-ups wanted to do. Like chasing down somebody to serve them, or finding the people who hadn’t paid their bill because they’d lost their suit and so didn’t have any money left because they’d been hoping that paying for an expensive lawyer would mean they’d win and now they owed a lot of money they didn’t have.

It wasn’t what Matt wanted out of life. At all. He wanted to help people, not hound them and have to keep a straight face when they started crying because of what he said to them.

It sucked. Matt hated it, and even though part of him knew the smart thing would be to take the job he and Foggy were about to be offered, take the salary and save it and maybe once he had enough money to not worry about things he could leave Landman and Zack and have a job he liked.

Except he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to be making a difference now, not sitting in this massive building surrounded by the biggest assholes in all of New York. Well, some of them. They were in direct competition with some of the businessmen Matt heard every time he walked near Wall Street, and who was winning depended on the stock market.

But it was torture to sit in the tiny room, hearing snippets of every conversation about how to bleed more people dry, how to twist this suit from this company into something that they’ll win, everything motivated by money and reputation and nothing motivated by wanting to do something good.

It had been easier to convince Foggy to leave with him than he’d expected.

Matt wouldn’t have blamed him if he hadn’t come. Obviously, he wouldn’t have blamed him. Quitting Landman and Zack was impulsive, demonstrated poor planning for the future, and Foggy had offered a couple of arguments as to why they should stay.

But ultimately, both Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock turned down the job offer and walked out the doors with a box full of stolen bagels and office supplies.

Matt had guessed what Foggy was drawing on the napkin at Josie’s that night before he’d finished, and it had still made his throat get tight even while he was laughing with Foggy.

Of course, they’d be Nelson and Murdock. The jokey plans they’d made over drunken nights in school turned into less jokey plans over a drunken night after quitting their jobs. And that turned into hunting for office space and clients, doing the work to actually set up their own practice, and it was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

Nelson and Murdock was worth it. Right?

“This is it,” Foggy said mournfully. “The very last daily bagel unless we want to buy our own.”

“It’s all yours, Fog.”

“We have to split it, Matt, it’s symbolic.”

“Of what, exactly?”

“The last piece of our old life as we venture steadfastly forward into our new one.”

Matt laughed and took half of the bagel, trying to push down the little twist of guilt in his stomach at the reminder that he’d dragged Foggy with him into this. A life of stale bagels.

“Hey. None of that Murdock kicked puppy look. We’re living the dream, Matt. Or at least on the way to it.”

“Stale bagels and expensive rent and-“

“And chasing dreams and doing good and getting to do it all with my best friend.” Foggy gently punched Matt’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have left with you if I wasn’t willing to put in the work. And eat the stale bagels.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, asshole. I’m sure. This is what love is, Matt, chasing dreams and taking risks together. Okay? No more guilty looks at my bagel offerings.”

“You must love me a lot,” Matt said.

“If that isn’t obvious by now, you won’t make a very good lawyer and we should go beg for forgiveness and L&Z right now. Now, what was the address in the middle of construction? That’s gotta lower rent, right?”

It didn’t make Matt any more confident that this was the right choice in the financial short term, but when Foggy ended up leaning against Matt’s side looking at another listing on Matt’s laptop, and Matt _was_ confident that Foggy meant what he said. That Foggy loved him, and Matt knew he loved Foggy, and so maybe they’d be okay.

*************************

Matt could hear the frustration in Foggy’s voice as soon as Matt said they would defend Karen Page.

It didn’t take enhanced senses when he knew Foggy so well, but it made it even more obvious when he could feel the careful, measured breath Foggy drew in and hear the way his heartbeat shifted.

But Matt had also heard how Karen was telling the truth. She was innocent. She hadn’t killed anyone, no matter how it looked. Even though Matt could still smell the blood on her hands, not quite covered by the soap she’d tried to use to scrub it off with. Everything she said was the truth, and wasn’t this exactly why Matt was a lawyer?

To help innocent people who needed to be defended. That was all he wanted, and that was what Karen was.

“You have to trust my gut, Foggy. She’s innocent.”

“She better be.”

Foggy was exasperated. Frustrated. A little bit annoyed.

All things Matt had heard before, all things he knew Foggy would move past eventually, but still not the best feeling in the world.

“Have I been wrong before?”

“We’ve never been desperately looking for clientele so we can afford to eat before, Matt. Usually, if you’re wrong about somebody telling the truth, it wouldn’t mean losing our firm before it even gets started.”

“But have I been wrong?” Matt pushed.

Foggy let out a deep, long-suffering sigh, but Matt could practically feel the smile he was trying to force away.

“No. You haven’t. Because you’re a weird human lie detector.”

“Exactly. So we can help her.”

“I wasn’t planning on going back on our word, even if our word was your word without much input from me.”

“Thanks, Foggy. Just trust me. We’ll win this one.”

“Well. I’ve gone along with your stupid decisions before, and I’ll do it again. So even if we don’t, we’ll make it through.”

Matt put his fist out for Foggy to bump it.

“For the record, this isn’t a stupid decision. But I appreciate the thought.”

“That’s what you say every time.” Foggy bumped his fist against Matt’s, though, and did the little breath thing through his nose that he did before he told a joke every time. “Can you guess what I’m gonna say next, Matt? My catchphrase?”

“Something something that’s what love is something cheesy.” Matt grinned in Foggy’s direction. “Like you do every time we do something together.”

“Only when you look like you're having an emotional crisis. Maybe talk to me before taking on a client next time, but it’s okay, Matt.”

“I’m not having an emotional crisis. I’m not usually having an emotional crisis when you use that line, actually.”

“No? Well. That’s because it works.”

“If you say so, buddy.”


	2. Chapter 2

Matt felt guilty for every lie he told.

It was the eighth commandment, drilled into him his entire life. Thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not lie, a hard line not meant to be crossed, especially not lies as big as the ones he told every day.

He was a good liar, but that didn’t mean he liked to lie. He hated it. Especially to Foggy.

Foggy who knew things about him that he hadn’t trusted anyone else with, personal things and emotional things he hadn’t talk to anyone about. Foggy who Matt was more comfortable around than pretty much anybody else. No, than literally anybody else, just by the simple measure of “people who Matt was consistently willing to take his glasses off around.” The list was one person long, and that person was Foggy.

But Matt lied to Foggy more than pretty much anyone else precisely because of how close they were. Because he’d never told Foggy about his senses, which meant he’d never told Foggy the complete truth about Stick, only vaguely mentioned having a mentor when he was little who’d turned out to be an asshole, and both of those things meant that Foggy didn’t and couldn’t know about how Matt spent his nights.

He’d meant to.

God had to know how many times he’d almost told Foggy. How many times he’d been able to taste the words, the explanation on his tongue, felt the truth itching and burning under his skin. He _wanted_ Foggy to know. He had wanted Foggy to know since he’d known Foggy for a month, but how do you tell somebody something that big?

How do you say something that changes everything to somebody who thinks they know everything already?

You don’t.

And so Matt hadn’t.

And if he had, maybe the physical pain he was in would be the worst thing on his mind right now. The bruises and cuts, the blood, and his muscles stiffening slowly, none of that hurt as bad as Foggy walking out.

He’d never done it before.

Matt had never done anything like this before, either.

He wasn’t mad at Foggy. He had no right to be. Foggy had every right to walk out because he’d just learned that Matt was somebody completely different from who he’d led Foggy to believe.

The words had burned in confession every time he’d said them.

Forgive me, Father, for I have lied. Again and again and again, to a person I trust and who trusted me, I lied about who I was and what I do.

It hurt even worse outside of the seal of confession, out in the open air.

It hurt even worse now that Foggy had walked away.

Matt understood. He did. Foggy was in the right, and Matt had been in the wrong since the day they’d met. Foggy was too good for Matt, their friendship was too good to be true.

Foggy’s list of what love is didn’t include lying, didn’t include sneaking around, didn’t include coming in to see him bleeding out, closer to death than he’d ever been.

Foggy’s list of what love is probably didn’t include Matt anymore, and that was okay.

Matt understood.

He’d stand up and push forward and keep going, and Foggy would find a new person to list love to, and that was what he deserved.

Matt understood.

It hurt. But he understood.

*************************

It somehow hurt even worse the second time.

Things hadn’t gone back to normal between Matt and Foggy, and he hadn’t kid himself with that. There was a hesitation between them. Something fragile and tenuous in place of what used to be the steadiest thing in Matt’s life.

No matter how much they insisted, to each other and to Karen and to anyone who asked, that they were fine, they weren’t. It was tense and strained and it hurt every time Matt was reminded of it, every time he wanted to make a familiar joke but the words caught in his throat or he wanted to pat Foggy on the back but stopped himself or he could hear Foggy breathe out like he was about to say something and then stay silent.

Matt understood, he really did, he understood that Foggy was trying, and that meant more than anything. Foggy was trying to figure out what of the Matt he knew was real and what was tied up in all the lies.

Matt wanted to tell him that he knew the real Matt better than anyone else, but he understood that he’d broken Foggy’s trust. Shattered it. Thrown it against the streets of Hell’s Kitchen and left pieces of it embedded in the alley walls dotted with Matt’s blood.

He’d destroyed Foggy’s trust, and it wasn’t up to him to decide when that fragile, tenuous thing between them could be strong again. Foggy had to make that choice, to decide to trust Matt again to rebuild what they’d had before, and he hadn’t reached that point yet, and Matt understood.

He could wait.

But when he left again?

Well. The first time he left it had burned. Fire against Matt’s skin, his tongue, his lungs. Lies that had spilled out into truths that hit Foggy like a sucker punch and sent him reeling out the door, gone for a few days until they agreed to keep trying to stick it out, Nelson and Murdock.

The second time he left wasn’t like that. It burned cold, it made Matt numb, because this was well thought out. This wasn’t a reaction in the moment, this was Foggy making a decision after thinking about it. Cutting his losses, packing his things, and walking out. On purpose.

Ending Nelson and Murdock the law firm, and ending Nelson and Murdock the friendship. Closing a door between them.

Matt had never felt so alone.

When he stopped being Daredevil, a piece of him hoping that would send Foggy back to him, he’d never felt so lonely. Because Karen went with Foggy, and of course she did, Foggy had always told her the truth. And Matt didn’t really have any other friends.

He worked on cases and slept all night and started building a reputation and making a difference, and even though it was everything he’d thought he ever wanted, it was lonely and miserable because somewhere along the line, Foggy Nelson had become a firm part of his hopes and dreams. For years, he realized, he hadn’t pictured the future with Foggy as optional.

And Karen had wormed her way in there, too, and Matt missed them. With a dull ache in his chest that somehow hurt more than any punch he’d ever taken.

And while Elektra hadn’t been as steady in Matt’s life as Foggy, she’d been two brief periods of some of the most powerful emotions Matt had ever felt, and this time she was really, actually gone, and that didn’t exactly feel great, either. It hurt, too.

He tried to fill that hole. Tried to talk to people and make new friends, which he’d never done on purpose before. Foggy had fallen into place without any effort, and everyone else had fit against Foggy in Matt’s life.

He even, once, let himself be set up on a date.

Why he thought that was even a little bit of a good idea he couldn’t explain other than saying he was desperate, so desperate, for a little bit of human connection even close to what he’d thrown away.

She was nice. Sweet. She very carefully avoided saying anything about Matt being blind, offered her arm when they left the restaurant, and kissed Matt’s cheek in front of his apartment building.

“Sorry about your breakup,” she said with a slight laugh. “Give me a call when you’re over it, we’ll try again.”

“What?”

“You’re very nice, but I’d rather not be a rebound, you know? So when you’re ready to be done moping, give me a call.” She patted him gently on the hand. “And for what it’s worth, whoever Foggy is? They’re missing out. You seem like a great guy, Matt.”

She walked away, leaving Matt absolutely dumbfounded on the sidewalk.

What?

He didn’t think he’d talked about Foggy enough to give the impression that they had been dating. It was just that pretty much every interesting story he had involved Foggy in some way because when Foggy wasn’t involved Matt didn’t tend to do anything interesting. That he could talk about on a first date, anyway.

So yeah, Foggy’s name had come up a few times, and Matt had trailed off awkwardly before finishing most of the stories because he could tell his date wasn’t particularly interested, and…yeah. Okay. Actually, Matt understood where she was coming from, now that he actually thought about what he’d said and the way he talked about Foggy.

And, truth be told, it was pretty much a breakup.

But he hadn’t been dating Foggy.

He didn’t…that’s not what this was.

Foggy was his best friend.

And Matt was straight.

Foggy wasn’t, Matt knew that, Foggy had never been straight, and Foggy had been terrible at pretending to not be attracted to Matt for the first two months they’d known each other, but he’d gotten over it. Matt knew, because Matt knew exactly what Foggy’s heartbeat sounded like when he was around somebody he found attractive, because he’d played wingman so many times, and his heart didn’t do that anymore when Matt was around.

And Matt was straight. He’d never been attracted to another man before, and Foggy was just his best friend and wasn’t it just slightly ridiculous that he was having this mini-crisis over something a woman he’d known for a couple of hours had said to him off-handedly. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know Foggy. She didn’t know what their friendship had been like, and she definitely didn’t know them well enough to think they were dating.

And Matt was straight.

Right?

Foggy wasn’t, Foggy was bisexual and he’d always been open about that with Matt, and Matt wasn’t. 

Bisexual. Matt wasn’t bisexual.

Right?

Right.

Definitely right. Matt knew himself. If he was bisexual, wouldn’t he have been more freaked out by Foggy flirting with him those first couple of months? And wouldn’t he have had some kind of moment where he realized it before now? And so Matt wasn’t bisexual, which meant that he and Foggy even more definitely had not been a couple.

So why had that thought, that one offhand parting statement from a woman he’d known for three hours, worked its way so thoroughly into his brain that he was now sitting with his knees drawn up under his chin, lost in thought?

Thinking about every single moment he’d shared with Foggy that he might, looking back, understand why somebody might think they were a couple if they had seen.

There were kind of a lot of them, actually. Matt had never paused to think about it before because it was all so natural. So easy. Being friends with Foggy had always been relaxed and affectionate, and so it was second nature to lean into his side. Steal food off his plate, share drinks through the same straw. They’d always set aside time for each other in school, and when they were working at L&Z, making sure to take at least one night a week to unwind together.

And it wasn’t like they went on dates, it was just that they had always had pretty similar schedules and so sometimes they went out to eat together because they both got out of class at five and the Colombian restaurant two blocks away was both delicious and cheap. And they were both just pretty tactile people, that’s why Foggy didn’t let go of his elbow when they were walking even when he knew Matt knew where he was going, and why when they were drunk they often ended up draped all over each other, arms around shoulders or heads in laps.

It wasn’t…they weren’t a couple. They were just friends. That was all. That was all they ever had been, all they ever wanted to be. All Matt had ever wanted them to be.

So yeah, it felt like a breakup because he was closer to Foggy than he’d ever been to any other friend in his life, but it wasn’t a breakup. It wasn’t.

And if Matt fell asleep on his couch, thoughts racing, and if he woke up from a dream with the feeling of Foggy’s lips on his own, well. It was just because he’d been thinking about how much they weren’t a couple all night. Right?

Because Matt was straight. And Foggy was…had been. Foggy had been his best friend. That was all.

*************************

Matt’s new life was almost peaceful.

Barely even almost, it was pretty much just. Peaceful. Calm.

He didn’t exactly have money to spare; working as a pro bono lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen definitely wasn’t a career leading to financial success, but Matt had known that when he decided to throw himself into it. He’d become a lawyer to help people, and that’s what he was doing now.

And he was happy.

He almost couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt as proud of something he’d done as when he heard Aaron James’s parents' voices when they found out they’d won their suit. It felt good to be doing something that helped people that didn’t involve hurting anyone, and it helped him forget that he missed being Daredevil.

Even when he talked to Aaron after the trial was won, when he could hear his own bitter anger at the world reflected in Aaron’s words, and the advice Matt gave felt like he was giving it to himself, too, he still felt good.

“No one can give you your life back. You have…you gotta take it back.”

And wasn’t that what he was doing? Slowly, bit by bit, Matt was taking his life back. Forcing it into what he’d always wanted it to be, and refusing to miss the life he’d chosen to leave behind.

He did miss his friends, though, and realizing that Karen was right behind him was a shock to his system like cold water being poured over his head. It was good, though, it was wonderful to hear her voice and to go to lunch and talk.

Something was still missing from their conversation. The ease they’d once had, the flow of their conversation. Maybe Matt was just projecting his own fear of opening himself up only to fuck up and have her leave again, maybe Karen didn’t notice. But it was also the lack of Foggy. They were a trio, or at least they had been, and Foggy would always and forever be the one to break an awkward silence or drive the conversation forward.

Without that, even though it was wonderful to be talking to her, it just wasn’t quite the same.

And he lied to her.

He’d promised himself that if he ever had a chance to fix his mistakes with Karen and Foggy, there would be no more lies. They knew his biggest secret, and there was nothing left to lie about. No Elektra left in the picture, no more running around in the shadows.

But when Karen asked if he missed it, if he missed putting on the mask and going out and being Daredevil, and he said no.

It was a lie, one that tasted sour as he said it and sent him to confession after because he did miss it. All of it.

And when the earthquake hit, the fire in his bones mixed with the sound of suffering from all around him and formed an unshakeable itch, and he went out.

How could he not?

The guilt hit in the same wave as an even stronger desire to put the suit back on when he got back.

He wouldn’t have been able to resist if his phone hadn’t started ringing.

_Foggy, Foggy, Foggy_

It made his breath catch in his throat.

A chance. Foggy wanted to meet him for drinks, and it had been far too long but this felt like Foggy was willing to give him another chance.

Matt still had him memorized.

His heartbeat while they were still three blocks apart, pounding into Matt’s ears sounding just like it always had when he was worried about running late. The same shampoo he’d used for as long Matt had known him. And his voice, as cheesy as it sounded, was music to Matt’s ears.

It had been nice to hear on the phone, too, but the tinny, mechanical voice was nothing compared to actually being there with him.

Matt had missed him so much.

It was hard to talk to him without making it extremely obvious how much.

Even when Foggy commented on his bruised knuckles, and Matt’s gut twisted when he did, it couldn’t quite dampen how good it was to see him again.

And he gave Matt case files of more cases for him to take on.

“To keep you busy,” he said, and Matt recognized the note of fondness in his voice, and that was even better than just being around him. Because that meant that there really was hope that they could fix this.

And Matt wanted that.

*************************

He didn’t mean to get involved with the Defenders. In fact, he tried his damned hardest to avoid it. He tried to top Jessica from going into Midland Circle, tried to walk away after the fight, tried to stay out of it.

He was taking back his life, he wanted to scream to the sky, he was trying so hard, so why couldn’t he walk away and leave it all behind?

The answer, he knew, was because it was in his blood. The Devil lived inside him, and it was always trying to get out, and this was the excuse he’d needed to let it.

He could justify it.

He knew Elektra, he knew the Hand, he knew Hell’s Kitchen, and here was this group that he could be a part of to save Elektra, stop the Hand, protect Hell’s Kitchen. He could justify the decision that barely felt like a decision at all, and give his all for his city like he always did.

As Midland Circle collapsed around him, the only guilt he felt was not getting to say goodbye to Karen and Foggy. Other than that, it was peace. Elektra in his arms, the thundering crash of the building giving way drowning everything else out, and then…nothing.

*************************

It took time to rebuild.

To rebuild himself. His sense of who he was. His sense of purpose. His body and abilities.

Every step of it hurt.

From the first physical step he took after the building collapsed on him to that final, raging, angry, desperate scream in the face of the man who had come so close to taking everything from him, it hurt. And after that, while he pushed himself to heal and to fix the relationships he’d almost thrown away entirely, that hurt, too.

The physical pain he was used to. It came and went, ebbed and flowed, and eventually it went away. That was just the way it was, and always had been.

It took weeks for all the bruises to fade. Months for his ear to stop ringing every time he took a hit to the head. It would probably be years before he stopped hearing Fisk’s voice, the screams of the people Poindexter hurt, resounding in his ears when he woke up struggling to breathe.

But most of that he’d dealt with before. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made it through a night without some kind of nightmare, and the bruises and the bleeding were just constants for him.

It was the pain of learning to be human again that hurt the most. He was trying.

God knew how hard Matt was trying, because Matt prayed about it every night.

He still wasn’t always sure that God was listening. It was hard to believe that with the certainty he used to have because he’d felt so alone, so forsaken, so recently, but he still did. Deep inside himself, no matter what doubts rose in the moment, that faith managed to run deep, and he prayed. For forgiveness and strength and understanding, and to know what to do as he tried.

It hurt, and it was hard, but it was so worth it. He knew as soon as Foggy held up a napkin with their three names on it that he was being given another chance, a millionth chance, to be a good friend and a good partner, and he was going to put in the work because he knew now that he wouldn’t survive any of this on his own. He needed people.

It was hard. To force himself to ignore the lessons he’d been taught, by Stick and by life, about it being better to stand alone than drag anyone else down with him. Every time he forced himself to accept Foggy or Karen or his mother’s help, it was hard.

But he did it. He did it because he couldn’t lose them again. He couldn’t do it alone, and he knew it, and so he put the work in. He set aside time to spend with them for fun, not just for work, and stopped keeping everything a secret from them, and made sure they knew that he was trying to change.

And like a bruise that hurt to press but got better slowly, it started to be easier. It started to come more naturally to tell Foggy the truth when he was late because he’d stayed out too late, to admit when he was hurt.

And as that got easier, the trust that had been so, so tenuous between Matt and Foggy and Matt and Karen got stronger.

He could still feel their worry, their disapproval of him putting himself in danger. They didn’t hide it from him, but they also didn’t try to stop him and he realized, at some point, that mixed in with their worry was some kind of pride, like they thought he was doing good.

And almost four months after everything, when Matt had shivered his way back into the suit that felt tainted with Dex’s sins, things were finally starting to settle. The people of Hell’s Kitchen no longer ran from Daredevil any more than they had before Dex, that thin vein of trust that had let Matt do so much good slowly coming back until they once again believed that the boogeyman only came for those who deserved it.

And outside of Daredevil?

It wasn’t like things were perfect. It wasn’t even like things were easy.

But when Matt was a half-hour late to brunch at Foggy’s apartment with a bruise above his eye, and Foggy sighed in disappointed disapproval, it didn’t start a fight. He offered Matt ice, asked if he was okay, and that was that.

And even when, after they’d eaten and Matt had relaxed into easy conversation like he hadn’t in what felt like years, the conversation did turn to Daredevil and what Matt had been spending his nights doing, he sounded like he actually wanted to know.

One of the promises that was hardest to keep but that Matt was most determined to keep was that he wouldn’t lie to Karen or Foggy anymore. He’d gotten so used to lying, even when they knew that he was Daredevil, that he caught himself blaming bruises on things that hadn’t caused them, or telling them he hadn’t gone out when he had.

But he was working on, and so when Foggy asked, he told him about the arms ring he was working on dismantling, how they were smarter than most of the criminals in Hell’s Kitchen and taking time to figure out, and how a group of them had attacked him all at once and managed to get in a few good hits before he managed to take them out.

"Jesus, Matty," Foggy said.

"It’s not so bad. I’ll be done with them soon enough." Matt shrugged uncomfortably, waiting for Foggy to get upset with him for putting himself in danger.

"Don’t get yourself killed. I can’t do that again, Matt." Foggy said softly. Matt felt him move, his hand coming up like he was going to touch Matt’s where it rested on the table.

"No lecture about not going out anymore?"

"You’ve made up your mind, Matt, and I don’t think I’ll manage to be more stubborn than you on this one." Foggy was quiet for a minute before speaking again. "Just don’t lie to me about it. Let me help you. Let us be there for you this time around."

"I’m trying."

"I know." Foggy did pat Matt’s hand this time, and Matt was pretty sure he was smiling, or at least starting to. "I can tell, Matt."

"Good."

"We’re all trying, you know. You don’t have to get that look on your face. I’m trying, too, and it isn’t easy for any of us. But we’re not giving up, okay? We’re trying together."

Matt flipped his hand over and twined his fingers with Foggy’s. The contact was grounding, a physical reminder that they were here together and things were getting better, and Matt felt the tension he hadn’t realized he’d let build on his face melt away.

"I love you, Matty, okay? And that means not giving up and working to fix things. We’ll get there. We are getting there."

"That’s what love is." Matt smiled at Foggy. "According to Foggy Nelson."

Foggy laughed.

"Stop stealing my line, asshole. I was about to say it."

*************************

Matt had good days and bad days.

On good days, he was on time for meetings. His mind didn’t run away from him, his senses didn’t overwhelm him, and it was easy to laugh without forcing it, to smile at Foggy’s jokes and Karen’s sarcasm, to just exist and feel human and normal and have it be at least not a constant struggle, if easy wasn’t exactly the right word.

On bad days, sometimes it was hard to force himself out of bed, even if he wasn’t injured. It was like some invisible force was pressing down on his chest, making him gasp for breath and move slowly when he did manage to get up. 

Sometimes he was angry, all the bitterness that he thought he’d left behind coming up and spilling over, and he lashed out without meaning to. He hated those days, because without fail he said something that made guilt well up in him because he knew they didn’t deserve it. His anger was at himself, buried deep inside, and when he took it out on anybody it made him feel awful.

Sometimes it was a rising panic, impossible to fight and moving through him until he was shaking and having to work to convince himself that every unexpected sound he heard wasn’t somebody coming after him.

Sometimes, he was just plain overwhelmed. He couldn’t shut his senses off, and sometimes it just felt like everything was happening all at once, crashing in around him and making it impossible to focus on anything. On those days, he had to focus on breathing, on narrowing himself down to one thing at a time before he went crazy, and it was just hard to get anything done.

But the worst days were when everything happened at once, when he was tired and heavy and overwhelmed and panicky and angry all at the same time and everything felt impossible. How was he supposed to get anything done when his own head was refusing to let him do anything other than think in the same circles over and over, paralyzed?

On the worst days, he sometimes didn’t even try. He laid down on his couch, if he managed to force himself out of bed at all, and just waited for it to be over. For his head to finally decided he’d had enough and to calm down enough for him to do literally anything other than sit and stew.

When Foggy knocked on his door when he was lying on his couch during a bad day, it sent sound ringing through Matt’s body like a physical force. Pounding against every hard surface in his apartment, painting a clear picture that Matt did not want and did not need until it finally collided into him with enough strength that it made him clench his teeth and bite back a groan.

"Jesus, Matt, what did you do to yourself this time?" He heard Foggy mutter to himself through the door. A key scraped in the lock, a harsh metallic grind that wasn’t quite as bad as the knocking but wasn’t pleasant, either, and the door squeaked on its hinges, and Matt wished desperately that he’d remembered to buy WD40 like he was supposed to last week, because that piercing noise was exactly the right pitch to make him curl into a ball trying to make it stop.

At least, he thought in a moment of slight hysteria as his senses went absolutely haywire trying to figure out what was going on with their sensitivity ramped up to a million, no filter left to cut out the unnecessary input, at least he was so preoccupied with how much it hurt to exist right now that all of the other emotions that had been threatening to push through had faded to background noise. Other than the panic, anyway, which was rising in his throat and threatening to make him hyperventilate if he didn’t uncurl himself, but he couldn’t force himself to uncurl because some part of him felt like being wrapped up in himself was dulling the sensory input even though it wasn’t.

"I thought you said you weren’t going out last night, Matt." Foggy’s footsteps and voice and breathing all invaded Matt’s space at once, which only made him curl tighter in on himself, pressing his arms against his ears in a desperate attempt to stop the noise. "What happened to telling me shit, Murdock? What’s wrong with you, where are you hurt?"

"I’m not hurt," Matt managed to grind out.

Normally, he’d be able to tell what Foggy was feeling. If he was frustrated, angry, worried, something else entirely. He had no idea right now, though, he couldn’t even guess.

"No? Then why are you lying on your couch looking like you’re dying?"

Matt couldn’t answer.

Not because he didn’t have an answer, obviously, he knew exactly why he was lying on his couch like he was dying, but because the rising panic took that exact moment to decide that Matt was finally claustrophobic enough to warrant his breath stopping.

Foggy had seen Matt have panic attacks before.

Plenty of times, in fact, because he’d lived with Matt for years, and panic attacks tended to hit Matt upside the head after a nightmare, and nightmares weren’t exactly uncommon.

So Foggy had heard the way Matt’s breath caught from panic, had seen the way his entire body tensed and it looked like he was trying to dig his way inside whatever he was lying down on, had heard the choked off sobs that Matt couldn’t contain when his entire body was screaming at him that he was in so much danger, that he wasn’t safe and that everything was going wrong.

"Oh, Matty," Foggy said, very softly, when he realized what was happening. "Matty, hey, I’m sorry, Matt, it’s all right, I’m here, okay?"

He sat down on the couch by Matt’s head, enough room left by the way Matt was balled up. The leather moved against Matt’s cheek, sticky and rough and painful.

Foggy had figured out all on his own sometime in their first year of law school how best to bring Matt down when he got like this. Gentle, soothing touch like running his hand through Matt’s hair, cold water, or ice if he could find it, to distract Matt from anything but what was in his mouth. Eventually, when Matt had calmed down enough that he could breathe, Foggy would wrap him in a tight hug. Usually, Matt would fall asleep like that, physically and emotionally exhausted, and Foggy would end up spending the rest of the night in Matt’s bed.

It had been a long time since that had happened, but Foggy clearly hadn’t forgotten.

He stood up and left the couch, came back with a glass so cold Matt could feel it on his skin when Foggy set it on the coffee table. The couch shifted again, but Foggy’s fingers tangled in Matt’s hair, smoothing out the knots and running down his scalp, and it was gentle and familiar and comforting.

Matt had Foggy memorized. He had for such a long time that it was like a part of him, the way he knew Foggy’s heartbeat, Foggy’s breath, the shape of him carved out of the air next to Matt, the way he moved. The scent of his shampoo, his laundry detergent, the way he took his coffee, the taste of everything that made him up lingering on the air. Matt tried to make himself focus on those things, to drown out everything else that was flooding in and replace it with the same comfort that Foggy’s hand in his hair carried.

It wasn’t working, and he still couldn’t breathe and everything was just. Too much.

Foggy pressed an ice cube against his lips. The cold shocked him; he opened his mouth without thinking about it and sucked on the ice cube until it melted. It almost hurt, but the feeling was enough to force him to suck in air.

"Just breathe, Matt, I’ve got you." Foggy shifted both of them so Matt’s head was in his lap, still carding his fingers through Matt’s hair slowly and smoothly.

Matt wasn’t really sure how long it took for his breathing to return to normal. Even when it did, it still wasn’t exactly normal. He could feel himself shaking against Foggy’s lap, feel the tears he hadn’t been able to hold back drying on his face, but at least he didn’t feel like he was suffocating anymore.

"You okay, Matt?" Foggy asked softly. He rubbed a gentle circle into Matt’s shoulder, making him realize how tense he still was.

"Better, anyway," Matt said. His throat was dry, his voice felt scratchy and uncomfortable, and Foggy picked up the glass of ice water and offered it to him. Matt sat up enough to take a drink, and Foggy wrapped him in a hug as soon as the glass was set back down.

"You wanna talk about it?"

Matt shook his head and melted into the hug.

It felt like it had been a really long time since Foggy had hugged him like this, not just a greeting or a goodbye but just a long, tight hug. It was like it sucked the lingering tension right out of Matt’s body and moved him into the exhausted stage of recovering from a panic attack.

Now he could focus on Foggy’s heartbeat, the flow of his breath, and tune out everything else.

"If we’re gonna nap, might I suggest moving to your bed? I don’t think this couch is big enough for two people to be comfortable on long term," Foggy said lightly, starting to stand up and dragging Matt with him.

"You don’t…I’m okay. You can-"

"Do you want me to leave, or are you saying that because you think I don’t want to stay?" When Matt didn’t answer, Foggy kissed his hair. "That’s what I thought. I’m choosing to stay with you, Matt. Feel free to kick me out, but until you do, you’re stuck with me."

He gently pulled Matt with him towards the bedroom, tipped them both backward and made Matt huff out a tiny laugh.

"Nap time?"

"You know me so well."

"I better, at this point. Also, you pretty much went boneless and look like you’re about to pass out, so it’s nap time whether you want it or not."

He was right, to be fair. Whether Matt wanted to or not, he was about to fall asleep. And when Foggy pulled the covers up over them and settled so that Matt was practically on top of him, listening to his heartbeat, and the entire world faded out until all there was was Foggy’s heartbeat and the rise and fall of Foggy’s chest, Matt fell asleep easily.

He woke up warm. Comfortable. Still listening to the steady beat of Foggy’s heart, feeling his breathing, Matt’s head resting right above Foggy’s heart and Foggy kind of half hugging Matt, his arms draped across Matt’s back. He’d fallen asleep, too, but when Matt shifted to sit up he woke up.

"Feeling better, Matty?"

"Yeah," Matt said quietly. "Thanks, Fogs. It’s, uh…it’s a lot worse when I’m alone."

This was part of moving forward, he reminded himself. Admitting when things were hard and being willing to accept help when it was offered. There wasn’t anything wrong with telling somebody he trusted when things were hard.

"This happens a lot?" Foggy sounded so concerned it made Matt feel guilty.

"Not…just sometimes. It’s just…a lot. I can’t…you know, I can’t shut off my senses. That combined with a bad day…the perfect storm for today."

"Overstimulation."

"Yeah."

"That sucks."

"Yeah."

"I didn’t…you could have asked me to leave if I was making it worse."

"No. No, Foggy, it helped a lot. It’s…when I’m alone, there’s nothing to focus on. Everything just…comes at me. It was a lot better with you."

Foggy took Matt’s hand and squeezed it.

"Any time you need me, Matt. I’ll choose to help you any day."

"I know."

It was almost strange, how sure Matt was of what Foggy was saying. He knew that Foggy meant it, and that he’d chosen his words carefully. He would choose to help Matt any day. He would make that choice. Maybe, Matt thought choosing hadn’t always been on the list of what love is. Or maybe it was just one so obvious Foggy had never felt like he had to say it.

But choosing each other. Over and over and over, no matter how bad things got or how far apart they ended up or how tense things felt, they kept choosing to come back to each other. They were choosing to work on their friendship, Foggy chose to stay and would choose to help whenever Matt needed it, and Matt would choose to push through any discomfort to make this work, because that, more than maybe anything else, was what love is.

Making that choice, over and over and over again, because they loved each other and love is worth the work.

*************************

Matt had learned, after too many slow reactions and unnecessary bruises, that going out every single night didn’t do anybody any good.

He may not have needed quite as much sleep as most people, thanks to the powers of being good at meditating, suffering in silence, and caffeine, but the fact was that if he didn’t sleep through the night at least once a week, he just couldn't keep up with himself.

Foggy and Karen, of course, had been ecstatic about it when he’d told them that. He’d practically had to convince them not to buy a cake celebrating his "final realization that taking care of himself helped other people, too," and Foggy had decided that he was reinstating weekly dinners, this time including Karen, on the nights that Matt could go home and sleep off any alcohol he was convinced to drink.

Not that he took that much convincing, not when he was with friends. He liked relaxing into casual conversation and old jokes, he liked laughing and smiling easily, and he liked making them laugh, too.

The story of his foray into blind dating (no pun intended, he assured them as they already starting laughing before he even actually started the story), was apparently the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

Matt definitely embellished it. Made it more awkward, made the hug at the end of the night more dismissive, and the alcohol definitely made things way funnier than it actually was. After all, a failed date was hardly the best comedy fodder out there, but maybe it was the fact that Matt just wasn’t the type to let himself be set up on a blind date anyway, so the fact that it went bad just made it funnier.

He didn’t include the comment she’d made about Foggy being Matt’s ex. Maybe he would, when Karen went home and it was just him and Foggy and they could laugh at it by themselves. Something about that part of the story just felt like it was meant to be private. Just Matt and Foggy.

If Matt was honest with himself, which was another thing alcohol was good for, he could admit that it was at least partly because he hadn’t ever gone back and finished thinking about the fact that there was at least a slight possibility that maybe, just maybe the severe introspection caused by the thought that he and Foggy had ever been or could ever be something more than friends had revealed something about himself that he’d never gone back to deal with. He’d woken up the next morning with the thought of kissing Foggy, and then he’d moved on and never thought about it again because that would mean more introspection and this time on purpose, and historically that didn’t go great for him. Typically, when he got inside his own head on purpose, he ended up hating himself and feeling miserable for at least a few days.

Maybe he was bisexual, maybe he was straight, but if he never thought about that then he never had to deal with it, and that would be better for everyone.

So he left out that piece of the story and let the sound of their laughter and the warmth of getting to be around them like this again wash over him, and everything was good. Great, in fact, Matt felt better than he had in a long time.

By the time Karen did manage to disentangle herself from the conversation and make her way out the door to the cab she’d called, all three of them were drunk and giggly and Matt hadn’t felt this purely comfortable in a long time. He’d ended up, somehow, lying down across the couch with his head in Foggy’s lap and his legs hanging off over the armrest. Every time Foggy laughed, he could feel it reverberate through his entire body, and when that happened he couldn’t help but laugh, too.

It almost felt like the nights out in law school, when Matt had been so happy that he couldn’t help but jump while they walked, like the happiness had moved past a feeling and into a physical effect he couldn’t avoid.

They weren’t really talking about anything, at that point. Just bouncing back and forth between random topics that didn’t connect but didn’t have to, not for them to just talk like the old friends they were.

Eventually, Foggy yawned and stretched and patted Matt’s chest.

"Buddy, I am ready for bed," he announced, much louder than he had to. "You. Should stay over. Just like old times."

"Twin beds in a dorm room."

"Sex above and sex below and sex to the left and right, sex in every dorm."

"Cheap alcohol everywhere."

"That much hasn’t changed, Matty. This was….I don’t remember. Cheapest option."

Matt wrinkled his nose up at Foggy in a mock-mournful expression.

"I know, Foggy."

"God. Super taster senses, I can’t get away with calling things good anymore, can I?"

"I prefer the cheap stuff." Matt sat up.

"So that’s why we’re still friends; you use me for the alcohol."

Matt knew Foggy was joking, obviously. They’d both made their fair share of that joke over the years, about everything from food to notes to MetroCard swipes, and Matt knew that Foggy knew that wasn’t why Matt was friends with him.

And he could blame it on the alcohol, probably, but he was hit with a sudden urge to make sure Foggy knew, absolutely knew with all the certainty in the world, that he meant a hell of a lot more to Matt than free alcohol once in a while. An urge so strong that Matt turned to face Foggy, and put his hands on either side of Foggy’s face and made him look at him.

"Foggy. I love you," he said as sincerely as he possibly could. "You…I love you. Not for alcohol. You’re…everything. All of it."

"All of it? All of what?"

Matt could feel Foggy smiling. He knew Foggy had a broad smile because it was dramatic enough, when he smiled all the way, that Matt could hear it and sometimes feel the shift, but feeling it under his hands was something completely different. It was like a revelation, a little glimpse into a piece of Foggy that Matt would never quite get to have but this is what it _felt_ like, deep creases and wrinkles and the click of his lips pulling back from his teeth, and Matt felt like he was looking into Foggy’s soul and Foggy’s soul was the sun.

"Everything, Foggy. You’re…" Matt wasn’t sure he would have been able to find the words for the feeling in his chest if he’d been completely sober, let alone right now. Foggy’s hands came up to Matt’s wrists like he was holding Matt’s hands on his face. "You’re just everything."

It was a quiet, still moment. Their knees pressed together from how they were turned towards each other, Matt’s hands on Foggy’s face and Foggy’s hands on Matt’s wrists. Matt could feel Foggy’s pulse in his fingers and hear his heartbeat, hear his lungs working, and Matt wanted to live in this moment. In the simple comfort of knowing that Foggy loved him and that Foggy knew Matt loved him, that they’d got back to this point in their friendship where it felt so simple and easy.

It was definitely an example of alcohol clearing inhibitions, but Matt remembered waking up from a dream of kissing Foggy, and in the same second that that recollection came to him, he realized that he wanted to kiss Foggy right now.

So.

That made him bisexual, right?

He was pretty sure that wanting to kiss Foggy definitely couldn’t possibly count as straight.

"I think I’m bisexual," he blurted. The alcohol must have taken away more of his filter than it felt like it had.

Foggy only laughed a little bit.

"No straights allowed in our law firm," he said, his smile somehow getting even wider. "We’re too cool for that."

That made Matt laugh. He knew that Foggy wouldn’t care, obviously, if he was bisexual. But realizing that he was bisexual, at least enough that he wanted to kiss Foggy, and saying it out loud were two very different things. It felt good. Like a release of something he hadn’t known he’d been holding onto.

"Are you staying over, or not?"

"I’ll stay."

And Matt fell asleep pretty much on top of Foggy again, listening to his breathing and his heartbeat and feeling safer and more comfortable than he ever had with anyone else in his adult life.

Foggy woke up before him, which almost never happened, and woke him up by pushing him sideways off of his arm.

"Can’t feel my arm."

"How about your head, because mine is killing me."

"Less than ideal. It’s a good thing it’s a Saturday."

Matt moved so he was pressed into Foggy’s side but not actually on top of him, burying his head in Foggy’s neck. He smelled like shampoo and laundry detergent and sleep and the drinks they’d had last night.

Matt wasn’t drunk anymore, and he still wanted to kiss Foggy, so he tossed aside any idea he had of alcohol being the deciding factor.

He settled for kissing Foggy’s cheek before pushing himself upright.

Foggy pulled him right back down.

"I’m not getting out of bed right now and if you get out of bed then I’ll feel like I have to get out of bed," he said.

Matt laughed. He let himself relax back under the covers, sinking into the warmth.

Nothing wrong with sleeping in on a Saturday when they had nothing else to do, after all. Not when the bed was so warm and comfortable, and Foggy had an arm thrown over Matt’s chest like he was trying to keep him down, which really wasn’t that necessary considering Matt was comfortable and more than happy to let Foggy roll over into his side, and everything was all warmth and comfort, and not just in the physical sense.

Also in the sense that a few months ago, Matt never would have thought that he could get back to this point with Foggy. They’d been here, in law school and before Matt was Daredevil, at this point in their friendship where it was just easy to be together, to touch and laugh and share a tight space as easily as breathing, because they fit together like puzzle pieces.

Puzzle pieces from two entirely different puzzles, maybe, but cut from the same mold and perfect together despite how strange it might look to somebody who didn’t know either of them.

And if Matt wanted to continue with that metaphor, which he might as well while he was being reflective with nowhere to go and nothing better to think it about, it had felt like the puzzle pieces that were Nelson and Murdock had warped as soon as Foggy found out that Matt had been lying to him, and with Foggy’s words after that revelation. Like now when they were together, they were forcing the fit that used to be so natural, and it wasn’t comfortable and easy anymore.

But they’d worked at it. They’d had conversations that had made Matt’s stomach twist in knots with how uncomfortable and difficult they were, but they’d pushed through them. Apologized to each other, worked on their issues, and now here they were. A perfect fit again.

Nelson and Murdock, just like they’d always said they would be.

Foggy wasn’t quite asleep again, but he was far from wide awake. More in that in-between state where, when Matt rolled over and cuddled closer, taking advantage of the warmth and comfort surrounding him, he mumbled something vague and pushed even closer, resulting in them pretty much hugging each other.

When they were this close, Matt’s sense of the city could fade into the background. It could just be warmth. The sound of Foggy drifting back to sleep, all the familiar scents of Foggy and his apartment, their pulses beating against each other where they were pressed together, these familiar things that made Matt relax into them and just…be.

That didn’t happen all that often, and it was nice to know it was still possible.

Even with a hangover, he fell back asleep without meaning to.

When he woke up for the second time, this time Foggy was on top of him. His head was tucked under Matt’s chin, Matt’s arms wrapped around his back like he was holding him in place.

"Well. This is comfy," Foggy said. He didn’t move.

"Mmhmm."

"We should have more sleepovers, if this is how I get to wake up. Cradled in the arms of a handsome superhero."

That made Matt snort.

"What? You don’t believe my assessment? I’ll have you know, Matt Murdock, that I’m a man of taste."

"I’m sure you are, Fogs."

"I know handsome when I see it, and didn’t I tell you the first time we met? Even if the blind date lady didn’t seem to think so-"

"It wasn’t my looks that were the problem, Foggy," Matt protested, laughing.

"No? What was it? The massive amounts of Catholic guilt visible from the sky? The strange working hours? The-"

"She thought I was hung up on an ex, actually."

"Oh. I, uh…guess that happened pretty soon after Elektra. Sorry, buddy. I-"

"No, uh…not Elektra." Matt laughed a little awkwardly this time. "She thought…it was kinda funny, actually. She thought you and I…"

"Us? She thought we were dating?"

"She thought we’d just broken up. I guess I talked about you a little too much."

"Great move for a first date, there, buddy. Talk so much about your best friend that your date thinks she’s the side ho." Foggy laughed at him and rolled off of Matt. His laughter shook the bed, and Matt couldn’t help but laugh, too. "God. You and me."

"Me and you."

"You know how many people have asked me how long we’ve been together? I think it’s the fact that I introduce you as my partner. Pretty sure my sister-in-law thinks we eloped a few years ago and are scared to tell Mom."

"I would be scared to tell your mom if we were secretly married," Matt said thoughtfully. "Never having her pie again is on my list of greatest fears."

"The man without fear is scared of my mom?"

"Anyone in their right mind would be scared of Anna Nelson."

"That’s fair." Foggy was quiet for a second before he snorted again. "Did I ever tell you about the conversation I had with my parents the first time you came for Easter?"

"I don’t think so?"

"Oh, it was a classic. Franklin," Foggy’s voice shifted into what was clearly supposed to be a joking imitation of his mom’s voice. "You know you can tell us anything. We love you no matter what, you don’t need to hide anything from us, and whatever Matt is to you, we love him too."

That made Matt lose it. He could picture exactly how the conversation had happened, down to the exact way Foggy would have reacted.

"We must just put out that energy, I guess. Hopelessly in love."

"I think more like…old married couple. We bicker too much to be in the honeymoon phase." Foggy tapped Matt’s nose. "I yell at you for your bad habits, you give a long-suffering sigh and make it up to me with dinner and drinks, but somehow it just works."

"Sounds about right."

"Ten bucks if we walked into Christmas dinner and said that we’re married tops three people would have the decency to act surprised."

"Only ten bucks?"

"Still waiting for the windfall a career in law promised me, unfortunately. My best friend dragged me away from a prosperous job, twice, may I add, because of his morals and dreams. So ten bucks is all I have to offer."

"Was it worth it?"

It was a serious question, and it shifted the mood.

"Yeah. It was," Foggy said seriously. He found Matt’s hand and squeezed it tightly. "I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t worth it, Matt. I believe in us. We’re doing good things."

"Not making money, though."

"Enough to get by. And, hey, we already know we can live together if we need to save on rent. So there’s a worry we don’t have to have. And aren’t you the one who convinced me money isn’t everything?"

Matt didn’t reply. He knew that Foggy probably would have stayed at Landman and Zack if Matt hadn’t convinced him to leave. He knew that Foggy had just left a high paying job and, as a result, a girlfriend who hadn’t understood his career 180 to start a second firm with Matt, and that Karen wasn’t doing as much journalism as she could be for the sake of being the resident private eye for them. And Matt was happy, of course he was, he has his feet more under him than they’d ever been, he had friends and family and some kind of work-life-vigilantism balance for the first time ever, and all of it was pretty much everything he’d ever wanted.

But Foggy and Karen had given things up for it. He hadn’t. He’d gotten to step up into this and all of it was an improvement for him.

"I can hear your overthinking from here, Matty, and I don’t even have super-hearing."

"I didn’t mean to drag you into my life."

"If I recall, I had to push pretty hard to get here." Foggy rolled again, and Matt could practically feel him staring. "I want to be here, Matt. I want to work with you and Karen, and actually do something good with my law degree, instead of working for a corporation. I want to help people, not companies. If that means cheaper suits and cheap alcohol and a smaller apartment, it’s still worth it. Every person we help is important."

"You don’t have to stay," Matt said. "You could…Hogarth would take you back. Maybe Marci-"

"I’m choosing this. I didn’t have to leave. I’m choosing you, and Karen, and Nelson, Murdock, and Page. It was my idea, Matty, and I want to be here. And me and Marci…we’re good at short bursts. There’s always problems if we try to be too serious, and I’ll choose you every time. We’re in it for the long haul, Matt, me and you. Because I want to be."

"Now you’re the one sounding like you think we’re secretly married," Matt joked.

"For better or worse. You’re stuck with me, buddy, whether you like it or not." Foggy squeezed Matt’s hand again, and Matt rolled over to face him. Their only point of contact was their hands, but it was warm and steady and comforting, like it always was to hold Foggy’s hand or arm. Like a guide that Matt didn’t strictly need, but that allowed him to relax and stop paying attention to his senses with all his focus for just a moment.

"I like it," he said softly. He squeezed Foggy’s hand back, feeling the pulse in each of their fingers, the way Foggy’s blood was flowing through his palm where it pressed so tightly against Matt’s. Foggy’s breath brushing against Matt’s face. It didn’t smell all that great, to be honest.

"Yeah?"

Matt heard Foggy smile, and without thinking about it he brought his other hand up to touch Foggy’s face gently. He wanted to feel that smile again, the way it carved lines through Foggy’s cheek and brought a tangible light to the room, happiness that Matt could touch.

He wondered what it would feel like against his own lips, if the happiness would spread to Matt like a fire.

"Yeah," he said firmly.

Foggy’s pulse sped up. Matt heard it and felt it, and he felt Foggy’s face warm up under his hand.

His senses didn’t make him a psychic. They didn’t magically reveal a person’s thoughts to him, or make it so that he could tell exactly what a person was feeling. They just gave him more information than most people had to go off of when he was making an educated guess.

So it was very possible, he reasoned, that he was reading the increased heart rate and flushing face as something entirely different than they were, especially since he just kept thinking about how easy it would be to press barely forward and find out what it would feel like to kiss Foggy’s smile. It was very possible that Foggy was just, for example, blushing because Matt was touching his face and he was embarrassed.

And so Matt didn’t press forward. He stayed almost perfectly still, holding Foggy’s hand and feeling Foggy’s smile, and the Foggy’s hand came up to touch Matt’s face. His fingers traced the smile lines Matt knew were starting to stick in place around his eyes, brushed the edge of the scarring around his eyes, and rested against his cheek, mirroring the way Matt was touching his face.

It only felt natural to lean their foreheads together, and this moment felt sacred. Like something was shifting, the puzzle pieces coming together into something new, something different but just as perfect as it was before.

"I love you, Foggy," Matt whispered, and more than it ever had before, it felt like a confession. Maybe because it was, a confession of something more that Matt had felt for a long time without realizing it because he and Foggy just fit together so perfectly that he’d never _had_ to think about it, and now that he was, it just felt inevitable.

"I love you too, Matty."

Foggy was the one who tilted his head to kiss Matt, in the end, while Matt was still just marveling at how good it felt to just be here in this quiet moment together. It wasn’t a particularly exciting kiss, nothing fast or desperate or rushed, just gentle and sweet, and Matt could feel Foggy’s smile on his lips and against his fingers, and he could feel the jump of Foggy’s heartbeat where their hands were still clasped tightly together between them, and he could feel himself smiling into it, and it was perfect.

Matt added another thing to the list of what love is according to Foggy Nelson.

And he’d never been happier to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo chapter two!
> 
> this ending might be one of the sweetest things I've ever written and i think it's just because Matt deserves soft things but doesn't usually get them that I think it feels so soft but I'm so happy with how it turned out! anyway comments are lovely but no matter what thank you so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello what's up everybody it's me back again with another fic! all i am is a ho for matt Murdock and all this is is a shameless excuse to give him some of the happiness he deserves I love him!!! I love him
> 
> the second chapter is already done I'm just gonna give myself more gratification by posting it later ajgjshgfs
> 
> anyway, I'm Asper and i want to thank you for reading! i had a lot of fun writing this and i hope you had fun reading it and if you wanna tell me about it in a comment, feel more than free i love comments!
> 
> also feel free to come say hi on tumblr @matt-murdok, it's a good fun time over there!


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